Scott Sharp's massive crash in practice was one of many similar incidents suffered across Acura's four teams at Petit. (Photo: Marshall Pruett)

Misc Petit Wrap Up Items

If Audi had a dream result at Petit Le Mans, there were a handful of teams and drivers that had nightmares last Saturday.

Let’s start with David Brabham. A championship lost before he’s able to turn a wheel in the race. For a driver and person of David’s class and talent, I think most would agree he deserved better than what he received. Taking on and almost beating Penske Porsche in their second year with the Acura P2 program would have been an astounding accomplishment – one in which Brabham has been a prime mover, but with the team moving up to LMP1 next year, winning a championship there will be even harder than it would have been this year.

Drayson-Barwell had a solid finish in GT2 and a win in the Green Challenge in their grasp, only for transmission woes to strike when the car was nowhere near close to the pits. With their ‘this can’t be real’ number of engine failures this season and a general streak of bad luck following the Dale White-led team, their efforts and the potential of the V8 Vantage simply haven’t had a just reward. Let’s hope Laguna Seca will be filled with sunny skies for a team that’s grown accustomed to the black clouds that always appear on race day.

Paul Drayson’s appointment as England’s Minister of Science bodes well for the ALMS – nothing like having a great ally in a senior government post – but the timing of his appointment could have been better orchestrated. I’m told Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, called Drayson during Petit Le Mans…with his phone ringing while they were on pit lane. Drayson had just gotten in the car to drive his stint when the call came in, so his crew, not wanting to be discourteous, passed the phone around and everyone got to say hello to the Prime Minister while Paul was pre-occupied.

Methinks Paul’s voicemail message should have been changed to, “Hi, you’ve reached Paul Drayson. I’m busy racing for the next ten hours, but if you’d like to appoint me as Science Minister, press 1. For Education Minister, press 2. For….”

Does anyone want to join me in hiring an exorcist for our friends at Intersport Racing? Two deceased Lolas in three races is a bit much to absorb – especially for a privateer team. We’re obviously overjoyed that all involved in the crash at Road Atlanta are OK, but we’re less happy about the million dollars of damaged equipment the feisty team have incurred in the last six weeks. Let’s hope we can rid them of their bad juju next week in Monterey.

Mazda. Broken car in morning warm up. No spares. Forced to miss the race they’re the title sponsor of. Kick to the groin. Ouch.

Acura’s teams appeared to be in a race to build a massive sculpture from broken ARX-01b components last week. Normally, teams look to the final races of the year with hopes that they won’t need to buy spare parts; with the 01b turning into a revised 01c, and for the teams into a 02a next year, they collectively hoped to close out the year and retire the 01bs without drama. Instead, all four teams have been forced to secure large numbers of spare parts that will have a shelf life of a month at most.

It’s a large expense just for one race – and a lot of work on Acura’s part to suddenly manufacture replacement 01b parts when they need to be cranking out 01c and 02a components. Needless to say, all of their crashes at Petit will indeed impact their timelines for 2009 production.

The LNT/Ginetta Zytek was mighty all week, managing to lead the race before issues struck the team. We can only hope they return for more ALMS events in 2009. (Photo: Marshall Pruett)

Acura designer Nick Wirth summed up their event when he told me, “The amount of destruction sustained over the whole week was simply incredible. The luck of AGR, both before qualifying and in the race, summed things up pretty well…” While we’re hoping and wishing for better fortunes for so many, Acura is high on our list for a trouble-free final round.

To stem the tide of ill fortunes, let’s look at two final team notes from Petit. After many years and countless dollars spent, it was great to see Flying Lizard owner Seth Neiman walk away from Road Atlanta with a drivers championship for his #45 car, a team championship, and if we look back to Sebring, a great win to make up for the smash-n-grab victory that was taken in 2007. Le Mans wasn’t kind this year, but their dedication earned them the ACO’s ‘Prix ESCRA’ award for the best technical performance. Well done on every level, guys.

The Team LNT Ginetta Zytek team put on one heck of a show all week long at Road Atlanta. Their Zytek/Zytek 07S LMP1 car was near the sharp end of the timesheets and also managed to lead a handful of laps on Saturday. The Zytek was essentially running in 2009 configuration, and mightily competitive; with the ACO knocking back diesel power and performance next season, the 07S could play the role of giant killer in the right hands.

Helio Castroneves looked 1000 pounds lighter in the press room after he and Ryan Briscoe claimed the LMP2 win. Penske Racing’s press officer Dan Passe and I found ourselves amused when we noticed the size of the winner’s medallion around Helio’s neck. The ‘Dancing with the Stars’ reality show star was adorned with a piece of kit that looked an awful lot like what another reality star likes to wear around his neck. Passe asked Helio if he knew who Flavor Flav was, and what if he liked having a medallion the size of Flav’s clock to proudly display.

Helio’s response? “Yessss Boyeeeee.”

Classic.

For those that listened to Radio Le Mans throughout the week, was Nick Daman anything other than an awesome addition to the pit lane reporting team? More Nick in 2009, please. His passive/aggressive wit works brilliantly and adds an air of unpredictability to a pit lane that sometimes needs a touch more humor.


Marshall Pruett is Automotive and Sportscar Racing Editor for SPEEDtv.com. Pruett grew up at "Pruett's Olde English Garage," his father's shelter for abused foreign cars, and spent his childhood being dragged across the West Coast to help with his dad's amateur racing exploits. Pruett spent twenty years working in various open-wheel and sportscar series, retiring from active duty in 2001. And in case you were wondering, no, he isn’t related to Scott Pruett.

He can be reached at

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, SPEED, FOX, or NewsCorp.




The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED